Thursday, June 03, 2004

A few months ago, I was somewhat skeptical about whether Al Franken could do good radio. Well, it seems somebody likes it:

But in New York, where Air America still broadcasts over WLIB-1190 AM, the network beat Limbaugh's station, Disney-owned WABC, among both 25-to-54-year-olds and 18-to-34-year-olds during the 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. period. In the 25-to-54 demographic, WLIB garnered a 3.4 share to WABC's 3.1; among 18-to-34-year-olds, WLIB won sevenfold with a 2.9 share to WABC's 0.4.

That's from the Chicago Tribune, which still lead with Franken's network's managerial teething trouble. (Management chaos in the media? Perish the thought!) And the Trib did better than the New York Times, whose story put "office politics", not ratings, into the headline, and didn't even mention Franken's immediate and unexpected ratings success for a dozen paragraphs, and didn't mention the ratings blowout in the 18-to-34 demographic at all.

Why is the so-called liberal media sniping like this at their brethren? Easy. It's better dish...

1 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Easy. It's better dish...Not just better but more convenient. The NYT twists itself into knots to prove it isn't "really" liberal media; for every sensible position it takes, it thinks it needs a Judith Miller or David Brooks as "camoflage".

There is a work of sociology begging to be written in resposne to Prof. Kieran Healy's immortal question, "But what’s so unpleasant about what seems to be the truth here?"